Kate McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton Sang ‘Hallelujah’ During This Week’s Very Different #SNL Cold Open

We’re almost a week removed from the election results that saw Donald Trump win the nomination for President of the United States, and I think I speak for a lot of Americans when I say that I was really looking forward to SNL last weekend. Some of us badly needed an escape, even if it was just for an hour and a half, and that’s exactly what SNL gave us. Lorne Michaels and company still get flack for letting Trump host an episode last year, and the flack is 100% deserved. They helped normalize Trump, and even though the election was still over a year away, letting him do something like that ended up being a very bad decision. That’s why I’m glad Alec Baldwin’s Trump didn’t make an appearance on Saturday night, because I don’t think anyone is ready to laugh at any version of him at the moment. Instead of a normal election themed cold open (which has opened every SNL this season), we got Kate McKinnon, in full Hillary Clinton garb, sitting alone at a piano singing ‘Hallelujah’. It was a powerful moment, and acted as both a tribute to the late Leonard Cohen and reminded us to that while the election is over, we should never, ever give up fighting bigotry and injustice in this country. Kate McKinnon is infuriatingly talented, and much like everything she does on SNL, she knocked this segment out of the park.